Gothenburg renews its port tariff environmental discounts

July 10, 2018

The Port of Gothenburg Authority (PGA) will continue with its eco-scheme, granting a 10% or 20% discount for ships that report good environmental performance.

The 10% discount on port tariffs will be granted to ships that achieve a certain level of environmental-friendliness in accordance with the benchmarks Environmental Shipping Index and Clean Shipping Index. The 20% discount, in turn, will be given to vessels running on liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The latter is subject to a time limit; in 2019, the LNG discount will be 20% as previously, before being phased out throughout 2020, with a reduction to 10%. However, during the phase-out period the PGA will focus on developing the regular indexed environmental discount, which takes greater account of the vessels’ environmental impact rather than the technology or the fuel used to run the vessel.

"We will of course continue to support vessels that offer a good environmental profile, but we won't make any distinction in the discount between vessels that produce the same environmental outcomes. As the environmental effects of LNG operation continue to be good, these will also be incorporated into our future environmental control system," Edvard Molitor, Environmental Manager, PGA, commented.

The PGA introduced its environmentally-differentiated port tariff system in 2015 in an effort to increase the number of ships running on LNG. While there were no LNG ship calls that year, a year later 16 LNG-driven vessels berthed at Gothenburg, 111 in 2017, and 135 are scheduled for this year (from January to May, there were 56 calls).

"It took time before it really took off, but today these players are at the LNG forefront at the Port of Gothenburg. Now that the discount period is drawing to a close, we can see that the upward trend is continuing at the port with a growing number of LNG calls. We aim to maintain our support for this development, and we are therefore planning to extend the four-year discount period by a further two years," Molitor said in this regard.

According to PGA's press release, the environmental port traffic discount system has a positive impact on the air quality in western Sweden be reducing the emissions of sulphur oxide, nitric oxide, and particulate matter (these compounds are reported to have an adverse effect on human health).